Unit 4 Part 2 Flashcards
Defense mechanisms
In psychoanalytic theory, the ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality
Repression
In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories
Alfred Adler
Made the “Individual Psychology” concept; emphasized that people are driven by desire to overcome feelings of inferiority and strive for superiority; shaped by social factors, not childhood
Karen Horney
Psychoanalytical theorist who developed the concept of “basic anxiety” which stemmed from childhood insecurity or unlovingness
Carl Jung
Developed the collective consciousness concept
Self efficacy
Our sense of competence and effectiveness
Self-serving bias
A readiness to perceive ourselves favorably
Narcissism
Excessive self-love and self-absorption
Individualism
A cultural pattern that emphasizes people’s own goals over group goals and defines identity mainly in terms of unique personal attributes
Collectivism
A cultural pattern that prioritizes the goals of important groups (often one’s extended family or work group)
Reciprocal determinism
The interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and environment
Spotlight effect
Overestimating others’ noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders (as if we presume a spotlight shines on us)
Sensation seeking
The tendency to search out and engage in thrilling activities as a method of increasing stimulation and arousal
Ethnocentrism
The tendency to judge one’s (ethnic, racial, or social) group as superior to other groups
Implicit attitude
A relatively enduring and general evaluative response of which a person has little or no conscious awareness
Confirmation bias
A tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence
Facial feedback effect
The tendency of facial muscle states to trigger corresponding feelings such as fear, anger, or happiness
Behavior feedback effect
The tendency of behavior to influence our own and others’ thoughts, feelings, and actions
Dispositional attribution
Explaining someone’s behavior by crediting their traits
Situational atrribution
Explaining someone’s behavior by crediting the situation
Internal locus of control
The perception that we control our own fate
Drive reduction theory
The idea that a physiological need creates an aroused state (a drive) that motivates an organism to satisfy the need
Incentive theory
The theory that motivation arousal depends on the interaction between environmental incentives (i.e., stimulus objects)—both positive and negative—and an organism’s psychological and physiological states (e.g., drive states)
Yerkes-Dodson Law
The principle that performance increases with arousal only up to a point, beyond which performance decreases
Affiliation need
The need to build and maintain relationships and to feel part of a group
Self-determination theory
The theory that we feel motivated to satisfy our needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness
Intrinsic motivation
The desire to perform a behavior effectively for its own sake
Extrinsic motivation
The desire to perform a behavior to receive promised rewards or avoid threatened punishment
Ostracism
Deliberate social exclusion of individuals or groups
Achievement motivation
A desire for significant accomplishment, for mastery of skills or ideas, for control, and for attaining a high standard
Set point
The point at which the “weight thermostat” may be set. When the body falls below this weight, increased hunger and a lowered metabolic rate may combine to restore lost weight
Basal metabolic rate
The body’s resting rate of energy output
Belief perseverance
The persistence of one’s initial conceptions even after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited
Cognitive dissonance
We act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent
Halo effect
A rating bias in which a general evaluation (usually positive) of a person, or an evaluation of a person on a specific dimension, influences judgments of that person on other specific dimensions
Door-in-the-face technique
A two-step procedure for enhancing compliance in which an extreme initial request is presented immediately before a more moderate target request. Rejection of the initial request makes people more likely to accept the target request than would have been the case if the latter had been presented on its own
Low-ball technique
A procedure for enhancing compliance by first obtaining agreement to a request and then revealing the hidden costs of this request
False consensus effect
The tendency to assume that one’s own opinions, beliefs, attributes, or behaviors are more widely shared than is actually the case
Robbers Cave experiment
A field study of the causes and consequences of conflict between groups. 2 groups of 11 year old boys were sent camping, developed rules, developed a sense of rivalry, leading to violence
Contact hypothesis
The proposition that interaction among people belonging to different groups will reduce intergroup prejudice
Prisoner’s dilemma
Used in investigations of competition and cooperation. Each participant in the game must choose between a self-beneficial course of action that could be costly for the other players and an action that would bring a smaller individual payoff but would lead to some benefits for all the players
Commons dilemma
A social dilemma that occurs when a course of action benefiting individual members of a community in the short term is detrimental to the long-term welfare of the community
External locus of control
The perception that outside forces beyond our personal control determine our fate
Upward social comparison
Comparing oneself with someone judged to be better than oneself
Downward social comparison
Comparing oneself with someone judged to be not as good as oneself
Relative deprivation
The perception that we are worse off relative to those with whom we compare ourselves
Reference group
A group or social aggregate that individuals use as a standard or frame of reference when selecting and appraising their own abilities, attitudes, or beliefs
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
The most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests. Originally developed to identify emotional disorders (still considered its most appropriate use), this test is now used for many other screening purposes.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
A personality test designed to classify individuals according to their expressed choices between contrasting alternatives in certain categories of traits. (a) Extraversion–Introversion, (b) Sensing–Intuition, (c) Thinking–Feeling, and (d) Judging–Perceiving
NEO-PI
A personality questionnaire designed to assess the factors of the five-factor personality model
Optimal arousal theory
A motivational theory that an individual maintains contact with various stimuli so as to achieve and maintain a preferred level of stimulation
Approach-avoidance conflict
A situation involving a single goal or option that has both desirable and undesirable aspects or consequences. The closer an individual comes to the goal, the greater the anxiety, but withdrawal from the goal then increases the desire
James-Lange Theory
The theory that different feeling states stem from the feedback from the viscera and voluntary musculature to the brain
Cannon-Bard Theory
The theory that emotional states result from the influence of lower brain centers (the hypothalamus and thalamus) on higher ones (the cortex), rather than from sensory feedback to the brain produced by peripheral internal organs and voluntary musculature. According to this theory, the thalamus controls the experience of emotion, and the hypothalamus controls the expression of emotion, both of which occur simultaneously.
Schachter-Singer Theory
The theory that experiencing and identifying emotional states are functions of both physiological arousal and cognitive interpretations of the physical state
Broaden and build theory of emotion
Suggests that experiencing positive emotions like joy, interest, and contentment leads to a broadened perspective and mindset, allowing individuals to explore new thoughts and actions, which in turn builds personal resources like social connections, cognitive skills, and resilience over time, ultimately enhancing well-being
Social reciprocity norm
A social rule that encourages people to respond to kindness with kindness
Implicit association test
Participants perform a series of categorization tasks on a computer for a set of words representing an attitude object (e.g., words such as ant, fly, and grasshopper representing the attitude object of insects)
Replication
Repeating the essence of a research study, usually with different participants in different situations, to see whether the basic finding can be reproduced
Stanford Prison Study
A controversial 1971 study of the psychological effects of coercive situations, conducted by a research team under the direction of U.S. psychologist Philip G. Zimbardo
Diffusion of responsibility
The diminished sense of responsibility often experienced by individuals in groups and social collectives. The diffusion has been proposed as a possible mediator of a number of group-level phenomena, including the bystander effect, choice shifts, deindividuation, social loafing, and reactions to social dilemmas
Public goods dilemma
A social situation where individuals must choose between personal and collective interests
Conscious
The region of the psyche that contains thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and other aspects of mental life currently present in awareness
Preconscious
The level of the psyche that contains thoughts, feelings, and impulses not presently in awareness but that can be more or less readily called into consciousness
Denial
A defense mechanism in which unpleasant thoughts, feelings, wishes, or events are ignored or excluded from conscious awareness
Displacement
The transfer of feelings or behavior from their original object to another person or thing
Projection
The process by which one attributes one’s own individual positive or negative characteristics, affects, and impulses to another person or group
Rationalization
An ego defense in which apparently logical reasons are given to justify unacceptable behavior that is motivated by unconscious instinctual impulses
Reaction formation
A defense mechanism in which unacceptable or threatening unconscious impulses are denied and are replaced in consciousness with their opposite
Regression
a return to a prior, lower state of cognitive, emotional, or behavioral functioning
Repression
In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories; individuals revert to immature behavior or to an earlier stage of psychosexual development when threatened with overwhelming external problems or internal conflicts
Sublimation
A defense mechanism in which unacceptable sexual or aggressive drives are unconsciously channeled into socially acceptable modes of expression and redirected into new, learned behaviors, which indirectly provide some satisfaction for the original drives
